What do transverse mechanical waves pass through?
The secondary or S wave of an earthquake is also a transverse wave, and it causes the ground to move up and down. The gases can be made to move transversely to carry the energy of a wave, too. It’s harder to see with them, but let’s give it a shot. Imagine standing in a large empty room with “fog” on the floor from lots of dry ice. The “white gas” you see is still for this experiment, and you have in your hand a pillow. If you lower the pillow so it just goes into the top of the “mist” layer and then move the pillow up and down slowly, you’ll get the same effect as if you were moving the pillow up and down on the surface of a calm pond. In the case of the gas, the white “mist” will behave just like a liquid, and there will be ripples moving slowly out away from the pillow across the room.
